FP’s Terence Corcoran: Sovereign slush fund for Alberta

Ah, Alberta. Home of rugged conservative free-market-loving individualists, low taxes and a right-to-do-business credo that likes to keep big government at bay. On the other hand, we’ve just received a report from the Alberta Premier’s Council on Economic Strategy, a 100-page lexicon of babbling agit-policy and jargon that aims to wipe out most of what has come to be known as “the Alberta advantage.”

The council, headed by former politician and corporate executive David Emerson, last week delivered a series of recommendations that call for, among other things, tax increases of up to 30%, more government intervention, a new sovereign slush fund, bureaucratic control over core investment decisions, carbon pricing, more regulation, central planning — all the stuff a good market-oriented province doesn’t need and shouldn’t want. Read more